ITEMS
ARMOR
Sometimes beginning players ignore the value of armor, but it can save your life.
Green armor can help you survive a gun blast to emerge with a frag, and blue armor can
completely change the balance of a level, by making reducing the effectiveness of the
super-shotgun.
GETTING ITEMS
Occasionally items up on platforms out of reach can be grabbed by running (or better,
strafe-running) into the platform at just the right spot. This can often be a safer or
quicker way to get an item than the "right" way. Examples of items that can be
gotten pretty easily in this manner are the plasma gun that appears in a deathmatch on Map
01 of Doom2, and the megasphere and rocket launcher on the inside portion of Map 07.
ALTDEATH VERSUS "OLD" DEATHMATCH
In original deathmatch (often called 1.0) once an item other than a weapon is picked
up, it is gone from the level, and no longer available though the match. Weapons in 1.0
remain on the level after players run over them , but each player can pick up each weapon
only once per life.
In AltDeath (often called 2.0) all items except the invulnerables
and invisibles respawn 30 seconds after being picked up. The weapons also respawn in the
same way, and you can pick up a weapon until you have no more room for its ammo. If your
opponent has a favorite weapon, try to keep him from it in an AltDeath game. He can't
shoot with what he doesn't have.
Because ammo boxes are quickly depleted from a deathmatch level,
and you can only grab a weapon once, the amount of ammo that each weapon starts with is
greater in 1.0 than 2.0.
I would say a majority of hard-core deathmatchers prefer 1.0, but
it is not as clear a general purpose rule as their tendency to prefer skill 5.
THE JUICE CYCLE
No, this has nothing to do with OJ. The Juice Cycle is the term the group I play with
has given to the art of picking up items and weapons in an AltDeath game. it is key to
time the respawn cycle of the juicier items (Juice Cycle, get it?). It takes some
experience, but after playing AltDeath for a while most players develop a very reliable
sense for when an item will respawn, provided, of course, they know when it was picked up.
An example of an extreme Juice Cycle is playing Dead Simple (Doom2 Map 07) on AltDeath
(BTW, because of the extreme nature of this level's juice cycle, it is not good for
AltDeath). In a deathmatch, Dead Simple contains one BFG and two megaspheres, and if you
play an opponent who can get the Juice Cycle down, it is possible to get shut out on this
level. It is no fun suffering continual BFG fire from an opponent with 200 health and 200
armor. Playing AltDeath on any level that contains one or more of the Combat Armor, Soul
Sphere, Megasphere, or BFG. can often degenerate into the battle for the juice.
Because invulnerable & invisibles do not respawn, if you know
where they are on the level, try to grab them right away. Also, be a bastard. If there are
four invisibles sitting there, unless you are positive (and I do not see how you could be)
that your opponent is not going to find them, take all four of them. You will not remain
invisible any longer than if you grabbed just one of them, but none remain for your
opponent.
In an AltDeath game, you can use items to follow your opponent.
When chasing, you can sometimes tell which fork in a hall your opponent took by which hall
has items missing.
It is often helpful to set up a marker item to help time the
return of a more difficult or dangerous to obtain item. For example, a level with a BFG on
a pillar that needs to be lowered might have a green helmet in the same room. By picking
up both items one after the other, you can leave the area to go engage in combat, and if
you return around 30 seconds later, you can tell if the BFG is back by whether or not the
helmet is back. A more sophisticated version of this is to this with an item remote from
the item you're timing. This method becomes very unreliable when your marker item is
something valuable enough for your opponent to bother picking up. Good items to use as
markers are ammo clips, solitary blue health potions and solitary green helmets.
SKILL LEVEL
The amount of ammo carried by ammo boxes and weapons as well as the damage caused by
weapons vary with the different skill levels. On Skill 5 (Nightmare), all the ammo counts
are doubled, and weapons cause the maximum damage. Because it creates more carnage, most
serious deathmatches take place on Skill 5.
CONTROLLER SETUP
CHOOSING A CONTROLLER
The best control method for Doom is the mouse. When the "mouse or keyboard"
argument breaks out, one of the facts often overlooked by keyboard proponents is that
mousers use the keyboard as well. The argument actually is "mouse & keyboard
versus keyboard only."
The mouse's main advantage is it does not suffer from the
keyboard's limited turn rate, giving you the ability to aim more rapidly and do
(virtually) instantaneous 180 degree turns.
Conversely, there is no advantage to the keyboard over the mouse.
Those who argue that greater precision is available to the keyboarder have not the
experience with the mouse to make that claim. Put another way, many keyboarders who are
trying to improve their skills, eventually switch to the mouse. Experienced mousers never
switch back to the keyboard. Those who've used them say that trackballs can be as
effective a controller as a mouse.
JOYSTICKS/GAMEPADS/CYBERMANS AND THE LIKE
The problem with all of the above controllers is the slow responsiveness. Changing
direction with a joystick or CyberMan requires more hand movement than a mouse. It is
possible to play well on a gamepad, but constantly holding a run button, and changing
weapons on the keyboard while holding the gamepad in both hands is prohibitively awkward.
SPACEBALL AVENGER
I have not used one, nor have I received a reliable report on this controller. I've
heard that using one will allow you to reach speeds that trigger the message to your
opponent saying you're using turbo, but I don't know if this is true.
CHOOSING A MOUSE
To my knowledge, there are only two mice in common use by the hard-core deathmatch
community: the Microsoft Mouse, and the LogiTech MouseMan. These are the weapons of choice
due to sturdiness of construction, and reliability of operation. Which you choose should
be what makes you most comfortable. I personally use a Microsoft Mouse, and am very happy
with it. Once you find a mouse you like, get comfortable with it, and stick with it. I
personally keep the disk with my copy of my favorite version of the Microsoft Mouse driver
(9.01, no longer available) in a vault.
MOUSE SENSITIVITY
Many players make their mouse as sensitive as practicable, but there is no hard and
fast rule other than to try to find what you like. There are two factors that affect your
mouse sensitivity in Doom, your (DOS) mouse driver, and the mouse sensitivity slider found
under the Options menu within the game. You should experiment with different settings on
both in order to find out what makes you most comfortable. If you can't get your mouse
sensitivity high enough, it is possible to boost it far beyond the game's normal level by
editing the default.cfg file. Default.cfg is in your Doom2 directory, and you can edit it
with any text editor. There is an entry in this file called mouse_sensitivity with a
number next to it (this number changes as you slide the mouse sensitivity slider within
the game). While the value of this number usually runs between 0 and 9, you can enter any
number you wish by editing this file before you start Doom2. Be aware that accessing the
options screen after entering a value above 31 will cause the game to try to draw the
image of the slider bar off the screen, crashing the game. You can avoid this by keeping
the value below 31, or by avoiding using the options screen if you set it over 31. You can
also lower your sensitivity into the negative numbers which can be useful on dial-up
networks (like DWANGO) where the network's use of extra gametics causes increased mouse
movement. Setting the mouse_sensitivity to -4 is the slowest possible, setting it to -5
turns mouse movement off.
It a good idea to find a sensitivity you like and stick with it.
I have personally suffered through a couple of playing slumps after messing with my mouse
sensitivity. However, since modem games often vary widely from match to match you might
need to move the slider up or down one notch just to get the feel you like.
VERTICAL SENSITIVITY
One option favored by many (most?) expert deathmatchers is to turn off their mouse's
vertical sensitivity. This causes side to side mouse motions to turn you, but not move
you. This makes it much easier to maneuver on ledges, etc. Let me strengthen that. It
makes it easy to move on such areas, as opposed to how difficult it is with
vertical sensitivity on. Using the Microsoft mouse driver you can turn off vertical
sensitivity by editing the line in your mouse.ini file to read:
vertical sensitivity=0
If your mouse driver does not work in this manner, there is a
shareware utility that can turn off vertical sensitivity called mouspeed
(7 KB zipped).
You have to use what you are comfortable with, but I recommend
turning vertical sensitivity off. If you find it uncomfortable at first, it will be worth
it to suffer through the transition period, you will be glad you stuck with it.
MOUSE: CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO DOOM-GODLINESS
Your mouse ball does a very nice job of constantly cleaning your mouse pad of dust,
oils and gunk. Unfortunately, the place all this debris gets stored is all over the
mouse's internal rollers. It is important to clean your mouse often, or these buildups
will impede your play. To clean the mouse, first turn your computer off, then remove the
plastic cover from the underside that holds the ball in place and remove the ball. Using a
cotton swab and conservative applications of alcohol, clean the little internal rollers.
When they are clean and dry, reassemble the mouse, and you're good to go.
SETTING UP YOUR KEYS
There are two key (no pun intended) things to keep in mind when assigning functions to
keys. Set up separate right and left strafe keys, and set up your movement keys so that
you can switch weapons easily (meaning somewhere on the left side of the keyboard). Any
keyboard setup that does not address these two factors is a mistake.
Here is my keyboard setup, which is fairly typical:
Z = Strafe Left
X = Backwards
C = Strafe Right
S = Forward
SHIFT = Speed
SPACE = Use
Left Mouse Button = BOOM!
(Opponent screams, clutches throat)
Here is Abraxas' keyboard setup, which is similar to mine. Note
the difference in movement key layout, which if you tilt your keyboard, is more
symmetrical.
A = Strafe Left
Z = Backwards
X = Strafe Right
S = Forward
SHIFT = Speed
SPACE = Use
Left Mouse Button = BOOM!
(Opponent turns into sphere of spooge)
There is an ongoing debate between Abraxas and me as to whether
it is a disadvantage to use the right mouse button for forward movement. Both of us have
the right mouse button mapped to move forward, but I use mine, and Abraxas doesn't. He
feels that separating his movement keys to his left hand, and his aiming and shooting to
his right (mouse) hand, creates a setup that offers instinctive simplicity (left
hand=feet, right hand=gun). I feel that using the right mouse button for forward gives an
edge because I always have a finger on forward and back. (You must, of course, be careful
no to press both, which results in no movement, and consequently, death.)
Repeating the important aspects of these setups; separate strafe
keys and proximity to the weapon switch keys (to touch type weapon switches).
KEYS TO AVOID
When choosing a configuration, avoid using any of the following keys, Q, R, T, I, G,
or B, as all of these keys serve other functions in a deathmatch. "T" is to
talk, and "Q" quits if you are recording a demo, and "R, G, I, and B"
are for talking to the Red, Green, Indigo, and Brown players respectively. So if you ever
play in a four player game, or record a demo, you will not have to redefine your keys.
RUNNING ALL THE TIME WITHOUT BUSTING YOUR PINKIE
In the default controller setup, the shift key is your run modifier. Many players,
preferring to run all the time, will jam the run key down, typically with a coin or wad of
paper. This works, but bear this in mind; you must release and depress the shift key again
at the start of each level. This means if you choose this method of running, after exiting
a level you will need to un-jam and then re-jam your speed key before you can run. There
is another method to run all the time, that requires none of this physical intervention.
By editing your default.cfg file (in your doom2 directory) with a text editor, you can
change certain settings that you otherwise would not be able to access. To run constantly,
look for a line in your default.cfg called joyb_speed. Increase the value on this line to
30, and voila! Constant running. Of course, there is now way to turn running off at that
point. I personally use the shift key to run, because I like to be able to stop running
for the occasional fine maneuvering, but if you are willing to live without walking, this
option is available.
All this having been said, I strongly recommend that you try to
play using the shift key to run (which is not a pain at all, once you are comfortable with
it). The advantage, in addition to the ability to be able to stop running for the
occasional fine maneuvering, is that the pinkie resting on the shift key provides me with
an anchor, or "home key." When I switch weapons, I reach up and hit the number
key while keeping my pinkie on shift, which allows me to find my way back to my movement
keys without looking. This is what I mean by touch typing weapon changes.
THE INSTANT RESPAWN
An option some players like to use is the "instant respawn." It can be a
little disconcerting to kill your opponent, and have him respawn and start firing at you
before his corpse finishes screaming. The instant respawn takes advantage of Doom's
ability to map more than one function to the same key. Simply set up your "use"
key (normally the spacebar) to be another key that you constantly use, like run or
forward. Then after dying, you will respawn instantaneously since you are already pressing
the use key. The downside to this is that you can lose the opportunity to scratch your
nose, adjust your seat, or whatever that you usually have between dying and respawning.
Additionally, some level designs make it so that you do not necessarily want to just start
out running straight forward (where you might miss a weapon or immediately fall off a
ledge).
Tony Fabris, author of
the BFG FAQ points out another strong
reason to avoid the instant respawn. If you fire rockets or BFG or plasma, you will not
get credit for frags made by your projectiles if you die and have already respawned. The
only way to get credit for an "after-death" frag is to stay dead until after the
frag is registered. Players who use the "instant respawn" key are missing out on
frags for which they would otherwise get credit.
Twitter 
